Private Schools

There is a little-known, one-room schoolhouse that sits on the second floor of a strip shopping center, off busy Forest Drive, above a Hispanic grocery store whose name translates to "Divine Providence." Some parents say providence led them to the Benjamin Franklin Learning Center, run by a warm but tough grandmother who put her youngest son through the program. For 13 years, the center has served home-schooled children seeking a greater academic challenge and more socialization, and refugees from traditional public and private schools who found larger classes, peer pressure and a constant focus on test scores demoralizing.

Gerard Albert Ancel Sr., a retired high school French teacher, died of pancreatic cancer Feb. 6 in Clearwater, Fla. The former Hampden resident was 72. Born in Beirut, Lebanon, he graduated from St. Joseph, a French Jesuit University there, and later taught French in the American Embassy there. He moved to Baltimore in 1961 and received two master's degrees in education, from Loyola College and the Johns Hopkins University. Mr. Ancel was a State Department interpreter for visiting dignitaries before beginning a teaching career at Boys' Latin School.

Flush with money but short on land, some of North Baltimore's private schools are leapfrogging into surrounding neighborhoods for the athletic fields and other amenities they hope will cement their future success.The real estate binge -- begun more than a year ago -- is stretching the traditional boundaries of the schools while increasing parents' driving times and straining the schools' relationships with neighbors.The Friends, Bryn Mawr and Roland Park Country schools have developed plans or closed deals for land to accommodate their teams -- at prices that reach into the millions.

GIVING state aid to private schools is a lot like the Lay's potato chip ad Once you start, you can't stop.With an estimated $1 billion surplus sitting around, Gov. Parris N. Glendening is entertaining the idea of providing state money to buy books and computers for private and religious schools.While this may be good politics -- particularly among parents whose children attend the state's Catholic, Christian and Jewish schools -- it would be bad public policy.First, there's the issue of breaching the wall that separates church and state.

Outcome-based pay for teachers may hurt poorer school districtsThe state plans to judge and pay teachers across the state based on how their students perform on the same achievement tests ("Success carries teacher reward," Oct. 10).That's like taking 1,000 dressmakers, randomly supplying them with different cloth from burlap to silk, and different caliber sewing machines, then judging them on the garments they produce.If one were applying for a teaching job in a job-seekers' market, and knew you'd be paid more if your students could perform well on some achievement test, where would you agree to teach?

ANGELINA COUNTY, Texas -- Gov. George W. Bush wants vouchers for Texas parents who prefer private to public schools.Nowadays it seems that whatever George W. Bush wants, he gets. From what I read, if and when he decides he wants to be president, he'll get elected.Maybe then he'll want school vouchers nationwide.Deregulation of public education: Is that what we're talking about? If so, hold the phone.I happen to have an opinion about public education. My opinion is that no other institution has contributed more to democracy in America.

Arts enhance learning and belong in every school's curriculumI want to echo Amy Bernstein's sentiments about the importance of including arts in all public and private schools ("Restoring the arts to city schools," Opinion Commentary, Dec. 13).We feel very fortunate that our daughter has both music and art in kindergarten at the Midtown Academy, one of the schools partially funded by the city schools' New Schools Initiative. Our school has both an art and a music teacher, but both have half-time positions.

Eager to give their students a leg up in the vast domain of computer technology, some private schools in the Baltimore area are requiring parents to buy laptops, much as they do pencils and spiral notebooks.It's an emerging nationwide trend at costly private schools, an expensive leap from school labs where youngsters must compete for research time on a bank of computers. Instead, pupils as young as 9 or 10 are tapping into the Internet at their desks, obtaining material from the Library of Congress or the Smithsonian Institution.

Hundreds of private school pupils, parents and teachers gathered at the State House last night to continue a 3-year-old quest to get state aid for Roman Catholic, Jewish and other nonpublic schools.The schools are seeking $14 million to pay for expenses such as textbooks and technology improvements.Last night, children held up signs saying, "It's about time!" and "We want our fair share," but the lobbying effort might fail this year.Gov. Parris N. Glendening did not fund the request in his proposed budget unveiled last week, and a spokeswoman says he does not plan to include such funding in a supplemental budget.

EVERYTHING'S coming up roses for private schools -- for some reasons that make the people who run them uncomfortable.One of those people is Sarah Ann M. Donnelly, who retires this month after 20 years as executive director of the Association of Independent Maryland Schools (AIMS).Despite break-the-bank tuitions, enrollment is surging as boomers' kids flock to independent schools. Almost all the 104 members of AIMS have waiting lists. Construction of buildings and additions proceeds at a dizzying pace.

No tax credit boost for private schools A strong democracy depends on a good system of public education. Maryland's constitution requires that every child be provided an adequate education in free public schools. That is why we take issue with the Baltimore Sun editorial supporting the BOAST (Building Opportunities for All Students and Teachers) bill ("A win-win idea," March 22). Reducing the state's general fund by giving tax credits to businesses that donate to private and religious schools isn't good state policy in good economic times.

It would be nice to know which teams are the best in high school athletics. It would be nice to know definitively whether Loyola has a better football team than River Hill. But would it be fair? I don't think the private schools should be competing for state championships in the postseason with the public schools. Initially, I thought I would be arguing for this. I'm one of those people who want to see a playoff in college football, so we know who really is No. 1. But after thinking about the high schools, which operate under different rules during the regular season, I think the mystery, in this case, should remain.

Economic crisis erodes our security The Baltimore Sun's editorial "Rescuing homeowners" (Oct. 31) is correct: Homeowners should be given at least as much help as the banks and the financial industry are. But what is missing in most discussions of this problem are the national security implications of the damage done to our economy. Has everyone forgotten so quickly what caused the breakup of the Soviet Union? By looting our economy and bringing it to its knees, the captains of Wall Street, aided and abetted by the Bushadministration and its ideological cronies, have done to the U.S. economy what no terrorist could have ever dreamed of doing.

School for the Arts HSA pass rate misstated State High School Assessment results released Tuesday misstated the pass rate for Baltimore School for the Arts and did not include three other city high schools because of computer coding errors. At Baltimore School for the Arts, a magnet school, the percentage of seniors who have met the tests' graduation requirements was listed as 67 percent, but Principal Leslie Shepard said only one senior of 80 has not met the requirements. Officials said yesterday that the school had not correctly entered computer codes to indicate that students who transferred from out of state and private schools were exempt from testing.

Harford Friends School planned to add first grade this academic year. School officials were looking for four to six students to make up the inaugural class but didn't meet their goal, said Jonathan Huxtable, head of the school. "Only two parents enrolled their children," said Huxtable, who started the school in 2005 in Darlington. "We kind of knew with the economy being so bad, it would be tough. We postponed the addition of first grade until next year." Despite the low turnout for first grade, the school's middle school program is bucking national trends with increased enrollment, Huxtable said.

Looking around, this is not where one might expect to find inspiration about Baltimore's future. A vacant lot, tired-looking rowhouses, an old industrial site, a defunct school used most recently as a homeless shelter. But there we were on a warm Saturday morning, in the geographic center of the city - a neighborhood whose main landmark is a graveyard - about 100 sweaty parents and 25 restless kids in a stuffy room of what was once Mildred Monroe Elementary. We gathered during a season of rebirth to plant a seed of change.

The Senate gave preliminary approval yesterday to a bill that would allow businesses to receive $5 million in tax credits for sponsoring scholarships at private schools. In about 30 minutes of often-contentious debate on the chamber floor, lawmakers struck down multiple attempts to water down or limit the bill, which opponents say amounts to a public subsidy of private schools. Calling the bill a "sham" that will "chip away at public education in Maryland," Sen. Delores G. Kelley, a Baltimore County Democrat, urged her colleagues to defeat the measure.

The county administration's plan to allow a Baptist church to build a school in Lothian and end a lengthy, potentially costly lawsuit has hit a snag, the Anne Arundel County Council. At least three council members say the school should not be allowed on the winding, historic road, and they are likely to vote against changing the county's policy to comply with the agreement forged with Riverdale Baptist Church. Defeat of the bill requires rejection by four council members, and Councilman Edward R. Reilly, who represents South County, has spent years fighting the church's proposal to build on its property.

Vouchers open up opportunities Opposing President Bush's school voucher plan, state schools Superintendent Nancy S. Grasmick states, "We support public education because it is the crucible of our democracy" ("Vouchers revisited," Feb. 3). In principle, I agree with this patriotic philosophy. However, one important clarification is needed: We must support quality public education. And the sad truth is that in many big cities, including Baltimore, thousands of children are trapped in poor-performing public schools.

President Bush's proposal to provide $300 million in scholarships to children in failing schools has redrawn the old lines in Maryland between voucher advocates who argue that parochial schools offer a good option for some poor children and those who see them as an attempt to undermine public education. In his State of the Union address Monday night, Bush said he would ask Congress to support the package, which would be called Pell Grants for Kids. "This is a voucher program that is intended to support parochial and private schools under the guise of helping low-income children," said Bebe Verdery, education director at the American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland.